Korea - Article - From Military Rations To UNESCO World Heritage

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From Military Rations to UNESCO Heritage: A

Short History of Korean Kimchi
Katarzyna J. Cwiertka
Leiden University
Geographers have argued for decades that “[f]oods do not simply come from places,
organically growing out of them, but also make places as symbolic constructs, being
deployed in the discursive construction of various imaginative geographies” (Cook and
Crang 1996, 140). This statement assumes a new dimension in the era of nation branding,
which can be generally defined as deployment of marketing communications techniques to
promote a nation’s image (Olins 2004; Fan 2006; Kerr and Wiseman 2013; Ahn and Wu
2015). Nation branding has in recent years become a key concept for political decision-
makers, cultural diplomats, bureaucrats, and marketing and advertising experts who are
concerned with cultural policy (Gienow-Hecht 2016, 236). While the nation has functioned
as a brand product since at least the nineteenth century (Gienow-Hecht 2016, 242), the
degree to which its image is currently being manipulated through corporate branding
strategies is unprecedented. Ample empirical evidence demonstrates that governments
around the world have since the turn of the twenty-first century ardently embraced nation
branding as a key tactic for enhancing their international reputation (Jaffe and Nebenzahl
2001; Prieto Larraín 2011; Rockower 2011; Kerrigan, Shivanandan, and Hede 2012; Dinnie
2014). What is particularly relevant for this chapter, and the volume as a whole, is that food
has assumed an increasingly conspicuous place within those activities.
The recently coined term “gastrodiplomacy” reflects this trend. It is defined as a form of
public diplomacy that highlights and promotes the awareness and understanding of a national
culinary culture among a foreign public. Simply advocating a food product does not equate
with gastrodiplomacy. Rather, very much in the spirit of nation branding, it denotes a more
Copyright © 2019. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. All rights reserved.
holistic approach to raising international awareness of a country’s edible national brand

through the promotion of its culinary and cultural heritage (Rockower 2014, 14). The term
appeared in print for the first time in a 2002 Economist article discussing the global
promotion of Thai food, but has since developed into “a field of study within the expanding
public diplomacy canon” (Rockower 2014, 13).1 While economic gain deriving from food-
related exports is a welcome by-product of gastrodiplomatic activities, their ultimate goal is
to boost the country’s international profile reaching far beyond the culinary domain. It has
been pointed out by marketing scholars that a positive country image may have far-reaching
implications for its overall competitive advantage (Jaffe and Nebenzahl 2001). Food and
Culinary Nationalism in Asia, edited by Michelle T. King, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sub/detail.action?docID=6162691.
Created from sub on 2022-06-21 10:20:36.
drink can be effectively employed to manipulate this image, as their long-standing
deployment in tourism testifies, due to enormous potential they have as indicators of cultural
difference (Woolley and Fishbach 2017). Research confirms that eating the same food may
not only have a positive impact on forming first impressions among individuals and influence
business negotiations (Spence 2016), but that a positive experience with a country’s cuisine
can directly modify perceptions of a county as a whole (Murcott 1996; Ruddy 2014, 30–4).
The analysis of forceful gastrodiplomacy campaigns conducted so far reveals that they
have involved product marketing (for foods brands and restaurants), along with promotional
and educational activities, such as food-tasting events, food festivals, and cooking
competitions, not infrequently coordinated by embassies and consulates (Zhang 2015). The
campaigns operated a coordinated media strategy, including slogans and logos, YouTube
clips, blogs, and sometimes celebrities for additional exposure (Cwiertka 2014). Zhang’s
study (2015) revealed that governments engaging in gastrodiplomacy customarily build
partnerships with the food industry and national and international organizations with
potential to enhance awareness and credibility of the nation’s culinary brand. Opinion
leaders, such as restaurateurs, retailers, and celebrity chefs are deployed worldwide, with
priority being given to places renowned as trend-setting culinary capitals, such as Paris,
London, and New York.
A common technique applied in nation-branding strategies is the continuous repetition of
specific peculiarities of the product/state in an attempt to create a distinctive identity
(Gienow-Hecht 2016, 237). Designating specific condiments, dishes, and drinks as symbolic
signifiers of a nation has proven a very effective tool in this respect. France and champagne,
Italy and pizza, Japan and sushi, Mexico and taco, and England and fish and chips are among
the most well-known national symbols (Guy 2003; Helstosky 2008; Sakamoto and Allen
2011; Pilcher 2012; Panayi 2014). In this chapter I will explore kimchi, which is the most
famous culinary symbol of Korea, according to a 2006 Gallup poll (Pham 2013, 7).
The UNESCO inscription

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines kimchi as “a spicy, pungent vegetable dish that
consists of one or more pickled and fermented vegetables and especially NAPA CABBAGE
and radishes with various seasonings (such as garlic, red chili pepper, ginger, scallions, and
anchovy paste)” (Merriam-Webster 2018). It has long functioned as a quintessential symbol
of Korean identity, officially sanctioned to fulfill this role by the Republic of Korea
government. For example, kimchi was one of the officially designated foods of the 1988
Seoul Olympics, proclaimed as one of the five most potent Korean cultural symbols by the
Ministry of Culture and Sport in 1996, and ten years later included on the Ministry of Culture
and Tourism’s List of One Hundred Symbols of National Culture (Cho 2006, 213, 220). Yet,
the proverbial cherry on the South Korean gastrodiplomatic cake was the inscription of
kimchi on the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of
Humanity (ICH) in December 2013. This occurrence generated extensive media attention and
added credibility to the subjective claims of the South Korean government that Korean food
(and by extension the country it comes from) was worthy of global recognition. The
Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which forms the legal
foundation for the list, was ratified by the UNESCO in 2003 with the aim of enhancing the
visibility of the world’s intangible cultural heritage and awareness of its significance. Yet, in
practice, it has been turned into an arsenal for nation-branding warfare (e.g., Askew 2010;
Aykan 2015).
Five years after the ratification of the convention, the first elements began to be added to
the list: it now includes such diverse entries as Argentinian tango, Chinese calligraphy, and
Indonesian batik.2 UNESCO defines “intangible cultural heritage” as “practices,
representations, expressions, knowledge, skills—as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts
and cultural spaces … that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as
part of their cultural heritage.”3 Although no direct reference to food and drink is made in the
text of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, it is today
considered the most prolific instrument of international law used to protect culinary traditions
(Maffei 2012, 248).
The first three inscriptions that focused specifically on culinary culture—“Gingerbread
craft from Northern Croatia” (UNESCO n.d. c), “Gastronomic meal of the French”
(UNESCO n.d. d), and “Traditional Mexican cuisine—ancestral, ongoing community culture,
the Michoacán paradigm” (UNESCO n.d. e)—were added in 2010, a year after an expert
meeting had been organized (in April 2009) specifically to discuss the role of culinary
practices in the implementation of the convention (Maffei 2012, 232). It is worthwhile to
point out that one of the issues raised was a high risk of commercial exploitation of the
culinary elements inscribed on the ICH list. This has prompted the ICH Committee to
emphasize in their communication to the states submitting culinary nominations “to take all
the necessary measures in order to avoid any commercial misappropriation of inscribed
elements, in particular of generic elements covering several domains, through the use of the
Convention’s emblem for purposes of commercial instrumentalization and branding” (Maffei
2012, 238).
Nearly a decade after this warning had been issued, we can conclude that such measures, if
indeed taken, proved largely ineffective, especially if we consider the central position that
food and drink have assumed in nation branding. This can clearly be observed in the example
of “Washoku, Traditional Dietary Cultures of the Japanese, Notably for the Celebration of
New Year” (UNESCO n.d. f), which was added to the list in December 2013. Not only has
the inscription of washoku since been extensively utilized commercially, but also, and more
importantly, the nomination itself had been considerably tweaked to meet the UNESCO
criteria (Cwiertka and Yasuhara 2016; Cwiertka 2018a, 2018b; Cwiertka with Yasuhara,
forthcoming).
This is hardly surprising in the context of post-industrial capitalism, where “knowledge,
communication, and aesthetics are the most important inputs and outputs of economic
activity” (Liagouras 2005, 24). These conditions lead to the shifting of symbolic resources
(cognitive, communicative, and aesthetic) to the center of the market, and their subordination
to the movement of capital; they are now “having their main objectives totally or partially
reoriented by profit imperatives” (Liagouras 2005, 25). In this context “profit” does not
necessarily translate into direct monetary gain, but may refer to the overall competitive
advantage, which, as we observed above, can be manipulated by the national image.
The approval process for a nomination for inclusion on the Representative List of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity takes approximately two years. All nominations are
to be submitted to the UNESCO Secretariat by March 31 of Year 1 in order to undergo
screening by the Evaluating Body and be presented for final examination by the Intangible
Cultural Heritage Committee for inscription, which is announced in November/December of
Year 2. All successful applications must meet the following five criteria:
R.1: The element constitutes intangible cultural heritage as defined in Article 2 of the
Convention.
R.2: Inscription of the element will contribute to ensuring visibility and awareness of
the significance of the intangible cultural heritage and encourage dialogue, thus
reflecting cultural diversity worldwide and testifying to human creativity.
R.3: Safeguarding measures are elaborated that may protect and promote the element.
R.4: The element has been nominated following the widest possible participation of
the community, group or, if applicable, individuals concerned and with their free,
prior and informed consent.
R.5: The element is included in an inventory of the intangible cultural heritage present
in the territory(ies) of the submitting State(s) Party(ies), as defined in Article 11
and Article 12 of the Convention.4
“Kimjang, Making and Sharing Kimchi in the Republic of Korea” (UNESCO n.d. h) was
added to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in
December 2013. This means that the nomination had been submitted at the beginning of the
previous year and that it successfully met the above-mentioned criteria. Kimjang refers to the
practice of pickling vegetables into a spicy dish (kimchi), which can be preserved for several
months and accompanies practically every Korean meal. Like the manufacture of soy sauce,
soybean paste, and red chilli pepper paste, for centuries kimjang was strictly a homemade
affair. Activities surrounding pickling vegetables took place in late autumn, marking the
passage of time in every Korean household (Figure 4.1). Nowadays, family members
residing in cities often travel to the countryside to join their relatives in kimjang chores.
Preparation methods and flavors used to vary considerably by region and this is still the case.
Each family has its own kimjang recipes that have been handed down from generation to
generation (Cwiertka and Moriya 2008, 167–9; Kim 2016, 41–2).
This brief description alone seems sufficient to conclude that kimjang practices highly
qualify for the inclusion on the ICH list. In fact, the nomination was singled out as the model
case of the type of intangible heritage that UNESCO aims to protect.5 At this point, the
Republic of Korea government had long-standing experience with UNESCO activities and
procedures (Korean National Commission for UNESCO 2015), and enthusiastically
embraced the new possibilities of having its intangible heritage recognized. Three South
Korean nominations were among the first elements inscribed on the list in 2008 (filed in
2007), followed by additional five the following year (filed in 2008).6 The nominations filed
in 2009 included “Royal cuisine of the Joseon dynasty” (Nomination file no. 00476), the very
first attempt of having culinary heritage added to the list.
Figure 4.1 Making kimchi at home is a laborious process requiring experience. Ingredients pictured here include napa
cabbage, garlic, Asian pears, and daikon radish. Seoul, South Korea (2003). Photograph by Katarzyna J. Cwiertka.
The timing of the submission coincided with launch of the Global Promotion of Korean
Cuisine (Hansik Segyehwa Ch’ujin) campaign, a comprehensive government-led initiative,
with the following, rather ambitious objectives: (1) quadruple the number of Korean
restaurants around the world to 40,000 and recognize qualified restaurants through a
government-ordained certification process; (2) elevate the popularity of Korean cuisine so it
is included in the world’s top five favorite ethnic cuisines; (3) enlist South Korean and
foreign celebrities to advertise the campaign; (4) increase investment in the worldwide
expansion of the Korean food industry; (5) establish Korean culinary courses at
internationally renowned culinary schools, such as Le Cordon Bleu and the Culinary Institute
of America; (6) establish a new kimchi institute; (7) implement the use of social media
platforms for Korean food promotion (Pham 2013, 8). In March 2010, the Korean Food
Foundation (KFF, Hansik Chaedan), was established in order to coordinate the
implementation of those goals. It was made possible by donations of 700 million wŏn (about
$620,000) from the Korea Tourism Organization, the Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade
Corporation, the Korea Foundation, the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives, the
National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, the Korean Food Research Institute, and the
Korean Racing Authority (Cwiertka 2014, 364).7
The nomination for “Royal cuisine of the Joseon dynasty” submitted to the UNESCO
secretariat in 2009 refers to a lavish, formal style of dining practiced at the Korean royal
court until the end of the nineteenth century, and since 1971 recognized as Important
Intangible Cultural Asset No. 38 by the South Korean government within the framework of
its own intangible heritage protection system (Cwiertka 2012, 138; Kim 2017, 7–9). Yet,
royal court cuisine remained largely obscure for the following three decades until the
phenomenal success of the television series Taejanggŭm (Jewel in the Palace) turned it into a
household name. The drama depicted the life story of a sixteenth-century historical character,
a woman who combined the career of royal chef with that of the king’s private physician.
Since intrigues and struggles for power in the highly stratified (all-female) royal kitchen
constituted the core of the plot, cooking scenes featured prominently throughout the story.
The series began broadcasting in September 2003, twice a week, each Monday and Tuesday,
at the prime-time slot of 9:55 p.m. to 10:55 p.m. The viewing rate rose at a spectacular rate,
from 19 percent at the time of the second episode to 28 percent two weeks later, and
surpassed an astonishing 50 percent by mid-November. Every week millions of South
Korean viewers were becoming acquainted with the half-imagined tradition of cooking and
eating at the royal court. By March 2004, when the series ended, Taejanggŭm was declared
the most popular historical drama ever aired on Korean television, and the royal cuisine was
transformed into an article of mass consumption (Cwiertka 2012, 139).
The series met with a triumphant reception not only at home, but also in Japan, Taiwan,
and other parts of Asia, evidently igniting the popularity of Korean food in the region. It is
most likely that this enthusiasm inspired the strategists of the global hansik (Korean food)
campaign to strengthen its gastrodiplomatic cache by nominating “Royal cuisine of the
Joseon dynasty” for inclusion on the UNESCO list of intangible heritage, following the eight
applications that had successfully passed the vetting procedure in 2007–8 and 2008–9. The
application was rejected on the grounds of not meeting criteria 1, 2, and 4 listed above. The
precise wording of the decision was as follows:
R.1: Additional information would be needed to identify more clearly the community
concerned with the element and its current social function for them, as well as to
describe how the practice is recreated by its bearers and provides them a sense of
identity and continuity today;
R.2: The State should demonstrate clearly how inscription of the Royal cuisine of the
Joseon dynasty on the Representative List could contribute to ensuring visibility
of the intangible cultural heritage and awareness of its significance;
R.4: Although two masters and two Institutes participated in the nomination process
and provided their free, prior and informed consent, additional information is
needed on the participation of a larger community outside the academic
environment (UNESCO 2011, 57–8).
Only a few months after this negative outcome, South Korea submitted a new nomination.
It is unclear from the submitted documentation whether this move had already been planned,
or whether it was prompted by the rejection of “Royal cuisine of the Joseon dynasty.”8 In any
rate, the new nomination checked all the boxes of the UNESCO requirements and passed
with flying colors.
Within a few months after “Kimjang, making and sharing kimchi in the Republic of
Korea” was added to the Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity, an
almost identical nomination reached the UNESCO secretariat—“Tradition of kimchi-making
in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” It was added to the list in 2015 (UNESCO
n.d. i). Since the pickling of kimchi is a practice shared by Koreans across the Korean
peninsula, it hardly comes as a surprise that the government of the People’s Republic of
Korea (North Korea) decided to claim rights to it. In fact, this was the second instance of
North Korea filing a UNESCO nomination for exactly the same element immediately after its
southern neighbor. Two years after “Arirang, lyrical folk song in the Republic of Korea”
(UNESCO n.d. j) was added to the list in December 2012, “Arirang folk song in the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (UNESCO n.d. k) was inscribed. As explained
above, the screening process of every dossier takes nearly two years, with a few months lag
between the announcement of the previous round and the deadline for the submission of the
next year’s nominations.
Although definitely less prolific than the gastro-national offensive launched by the South,
the North Korean government did not relinquish its claims to the shared intangible heritage
of the Korean peninsula. For example, a set of North Korean stamps on the theme “National
Food” was issued in 2006, following South Korean stamps featuring Korean dishes unveiled
a few years earlier (Cwiertka 2012, 170–2). In July 2014, North Korea launched its own
website, www.cooks.org.kp, which includes recipes for over a thousand dishes, hailing from
both South and North Korea. Kim (2017, 7–9) interprets this as a projection of a unified
vision of Korea, but in my view this instance underscores the gastrodiplomatic competition
unleashed by the UNESCO’s ICH initiative. Sensitivities surrounding shared heritage by
nation-states with territorial disputes had already surfaced in 2009, at the occasion of the
inscription of Karagöz (UNESCO n.d. l), a form of shadow theatre practiced in Greece and
Turkey, but nominated by Turkey (Aykan 2015). Literature to date has called attention to the
misuse of the ICH Convention for such nationalistic purposes (see, e.g., Smith and Akagawa
2009; Askew 2010), and more specifically to the drawbacks of nationalistic descriptions of
culinary practices. Tettner and Kalyoncu (2016, 49), for example, warn that this rhetoric
leads to many historic, geographic, and political dimensions of food cultures that do not
conform to these nationalist perspectives being left out. While highly relevant, this is not the
only issue that renders the Intangible Cultural Heritage initiative of UNESCO problematic.
In my view, the glorification of intangible cultural heritage fostered by UNESCO
underplays the importance of preserving knowledge about the actual historical trajectories of
those practices. In order to meet the requirements specified by the ICH Convention, the focus
lies on the contemporary state of affairs, without taking into account the historical
development of contemporary practices considered as “heritage.” The analysis of their past
may reveal inconsistencies in the official narratives presented by nominating states,
disclosing connections that often do not fit within their nationalistic agendas. To paraphrase
renowned British historian David Lowenthal (1998, 13), in the UNESCO nominations the
past is being reshaped to make the heritage palatable for public consumption. In the case of
kimchi, this is particularly relevant in relation to the industrialization of its manufacture.
Industrializing heritage
While in North Korea the practices related to pickling kimchi continue more or less
undisturbed, in South Korea they have undergone considerable reconfiguration during the
last couple of decades. First of all, per-capita consumption of kimchi in South Korea has
continued to decline since the 1990s. Over a period of twenty years, between 1991 and 2012,
it decreased from roughly 35 kilograms to 22 kilograms per annum. The pace of decline has
steadily accelerated. Between 2007 and 2012 alone per-capita consumption declined by 25
percent, from 80 grams to 60 grams per day (Jo 2016, 78).
This decline was caused, in the first place, by a rising standard of living. Dishes prepared
with foodstuffs of animal origin such as beef, pork, chicken, and eggs, increasingly replaced
kimchi as the primary side dish; between 1965 and 1996 their consumption skyrocketed from
5.5 kilograms to 93.7 kilograms. Later, the impact of dietary globalization played a role, as
foreign foods, such as American fast-food, pasta, and sushi pushed kimchi away from South
Korean tables (Cwiertka 2012, 122–8). Yet, despite a drastic decline in the consumption of
kimchi, the kimchi industry has kept thriving. For example, between 1991 and 2000 the
production increased six-fold (from 52,000 tons to 309,000 tons). Within only two years,
between 1995 and 1997, the number of South Korean kimchi manufacturers more than
doubled, from 190 to 459 (Jo 2016, 6). By 2010, there were 859 manufacturers, which now
also included food-processing giants such as Doosan and Chail Jeadan.
Recently conducted surveys indicate that the home pickling of kimchi—once a standard
chore performed in every Korean household—is successively declining, as more and more
Koreans eat out or rely on store-bought products (Lee, Choi, and Park 2011). The year 2013
(the year of the inscription of kimjang on the UNESCO list) marked the first time that the
value of factory-made kimchi surpassed the share of homemade kimchi in South Korea.
According to data from 2015, the volume of home-pickled kimchi was still slightly larger
than the amount produced industrially. However, the gap rapidly diminished. In 2008, the
amount of kimchi pickled at home was almost double the amount made industrially (832,000
tons against 483,000 tons). Within a period of only seven years, between 2008 and 2015, this
difference in volume declined by half – from 349,000 tons to 172,000 tons (Jo 2016, 78).
The very same year kimjang obtained ICH status, the consumption of factory-made kimchi
surpassed the share of homemade kimchi on the South Korean market for the first time (Kim
2016, 46). Yet, the industrialization of kimchi pickling remains an obscure topic within the
burgeoning literature on kimjang, despite the critical role it has assumed in the preservation
of the custom of kimchi consumption. As Chi-Hoon Kim (2016, 51), a graduate student of
anthropology at Indiana University, convincingly argued in her study of the construction of
kimjang as an ICH, commercialization of kimchi has played an essential role in retaining this
labor-intensive food item on the daily menus of South Koreans, despite the demands of
contemporary life, thus preserving kimchi heritage. “The failure to acknowledge these
transformations presents the practice as a time-honored custom fixed in time and space rather
than highlighting how new variations are reviving it as a living heritage” (Kim 2016, 51).
Kim’s critical analysis echoes the insightful comments offered by food historian Rachel
Laudan at the occasion of inscription of “Traditional Mexican cuisine—ancestral, ongoing
community culture, the Michoacán” (UNESCO n.d. e) as UNESCO’s intangible heritage in
2010: “To try to freeze the cuisines in time is like commanding the tide to stand still”
(Laudan 2010).
The remainder of this chapter is an attempt to fill in gaps in the historical understanding of
the industrialization of kimchi. The 1990s are generally considered a turning point in this
respect. Cho (2006, 218) reports that the number of manufacturers more than doubled
between 1992 and 2000 (from 160 to 400), and production volume reached 450,000 tons. In
1994 the city of Kwangju held its first World Kimchi Festival, organized on a yearly basis
with the aim of setting the city on the map as kimchi’s capital (Kim 2016, 50). Ten years
later, the Planning and Promotion Unit for the Kimchi Industry was created with government
funding in Kwangju Technopark, which was the very first case of government funding for a
concrete industrial promotion project of kimchi (Cho 2006, 220–1). In the meantime,
producers of home electronics teamed up with kimchi manufacturers in the development of
kimchi refrigerators, and in 2005 the Korean Kimchi Association was set up, with
“development of domestic kimchi industry” as one of its objectives (Cho 2006, 219).
An important incentive for consolidated action between the industry and government was
provided by a dispute between South Korea and Japan often called the “kimchi war” (kimch’i
chŏnjaeng), over the international standardization of kimchi by the Codex Alimentarius
Commission (CAC), part of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (Han
2010, 158–61). The conflict began in 1996 when Japan proposed designating kimuchi (the
Japanese pronunciation of kimchi) an official Atlanta Olympic food. By then Japanese–
Korean trade relations were already under stress because Japan had already been involved in
exporting the Japanese “instant” version of kimchi, which lacked the distinctive flavor
deriving from the fermentation process. In response, South Korea had filed a case with the
Codex, arguing that there was a need to establish an international kimchi standard, which was
officially adopted on July 5, 2001. Point 2.2 of the document delineates fermentation as the
defining feature of the product.
Kimchi is the product:

(a) prepared from varieties of Chinese cabbage, Brassica pekinensis Rupr.; such Chinese cabbages shall be free from
significant defects, and trimmed to remove inedible parts, salted, washed with fresh water, and drained to remove
excess water; they may or may not be cut into suitable sized pieces/parts;
(b) processed with seasoning mixture mainly consisting of red pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) powder, garlic, ginger,
edible Allium varieties other than garlic, and radish. These ingredients may be chopped, sliced and broken into
pieces; and
(c) fermented before or after being packaged into appropriate containers to ensure the proper ripening and
preservation of the product by lactic acid production at low temperatures.
FAO (2001) 2017
These developments had rather unexpected consequences. While the exports of Korean
kimchi indeed increased following the inclusion of the kimchi standard in Codex
Alimentarius, generating a slight positive margin for Korea, it also led to the boost of its
manufacture in China and growing imports of Chinese kimchi to Korea (Lee 2014; Wui
2014).
Ironically, the “kimchi war” was brought about by the popularity of the pickle in Japan, the
very objective of the global promotion of Korean food campaign. Between 1990 and 2000
the production of the Korean pickle in Japan increased nearly fourfold, while its import from
Korea increased from 3,432 tons to 30,000 tons. The growth during the final two years was
particularly spectacular—from 15,000 tons to 30,000 tons. In the year 2000 kimchi ranked as
number one among all the pickled vegetables produced (and consumed) in Japan, far ahead
of traditional Japanese products (Cwiertka 2006, 153). A combination of factors stimulated

the swift popularization of kimchi in Japan. Manufacturers’ efforts to revive the stagnating
market for pickled vegetables, and the tough competition between them, is considered to
have played an important role. The ethnic food boom and health-food fashion that swept
Japan during the 1990s were also significant, because they led to shifts in attitude,
particularly among women, toward spices and garlic. Kimchi was embraced as a delicious
food with healthy properties, such as the ability to increase stamina, prevent cancer, and even
generate weight loss. The third factor behind the rapidly growing popularity of kimchi in
Japan was the changing attitude toward Korea, inspired by two international sporting events
that took place in Seoul—the Tenth Asian Games in 1986 and the Twenty-Fourth Olympic
Games in 1988. The publicity surrounding both events engaged the interest of the Japanese
public, leading to the growth of Japanese tourism to South Korea (Cwiertka 2006, 154).
To sum up, the popularity of kimchi in Japan offered new business opportunities for
Korean manufacturers, who thus far had supplied kimchi primarily to institutional consumers
such as the armed forces and canteens. The new circumstances provided a strong stimulus for
expansion, which was reflected by the skyrocketing number of manufacturers mentioned
earlier. As the volume of production increased, so did the quality, resulting in the end-product
becoming competitive with the homemade pickle.
The kimchi file

Along with the 1990s, which can be considered a turning point in the rise of the South
Korean kimchi industry, the pivotal role of pioneering efforts toward commercialization of
kimchi production two decades earlier is equally essential. They were undertaken for a very
specific purpose of providing kimchi rations to Korean troops in Vietnam. South Koreans
comprised roughly two-thirds of the Free World Military Forces, which fought along with
American soldiers in the Vietnam War (1955–75). The build-up of the Republic of Korea
troops began in 1965 from over 20,000 men to a peak of nearly 50,000 three years later. The
deployment continued until 1973, with over 300,000 Korean soldiers serving in Vietnam
throughout the war, 5,000 of whom died and 11,000 of whom were injured (Larsen and
Collins 1985, 23).
The issue of kimchi rations began to surface in the media from the beginning of the
deployment of Korean soldiers to Vietnam in the spring of 1965. The April 21 edition of the
Korean newsreel Taehan News, screened in cinemas and other public places, showed images
of a Korean Marine Corps engineer company, known as the “Pigeon Unit,” being visited by
the wives of the staff of the Korean Embassy in Vietnam.9 The women were engaged in the
preparation of kimchi, which, according to a newspaper article that appeared in early March,
was the first instance of such activity taking place in Vietnam.10 By the summer,
contradictory accounts of whether or not special rations were being procured for Koreans
could be found in the Korean media. For example, the newspaper Kyŏnghyang Sinmun
reported on July 8 that the Korean parliament had discussed the matter of canned kimchi
produced in Hawai‘i being provided to the Pigeon Unit, but two days later issued a correction
that this story was untrue.11 On July 24, the same newspaper again reported rumors from the
Korean parliament. This time, parliamentarian Kim claimed that negotiations were ongoing
between the Japanese government and the Americans regarding the provision of Japanese
miso to the Korean soldiers in Vietnam.12 Two weeks earlier, the newspaper Chosŏn Ilbo had
announced that the American authorities had flatly refused a Korean request to provide
Korean soldiers in Vietnam with any special rations.13
In the following months, the attention of the media shifted to the hardships of the soldiers
who were deprived of kimchi14 and the US prohibition against sending Korean troops
packages containing Korean condiments.15 At the same time, updates on the progress that
Korean scientists and manufacturers were making in developing canned kimchi were
frequently published.16 In 1967, the public was shown how this spectacular new product was
being produced and delivered to the soldiers (Figure 4.2), and a year later the first images of
Korean troops in Vietnam consuming canned kimchi appeared in a newsreel from January 8,
1968 (Figure 4.3).
Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes negotiations were taking place as to who was to pay the
kimchi bill. The topic was first raised at the highest level during a private conversation
between US President Lyndon Johnson and prime minister of the Republic of Korea Il Kwon
Chung on March 14, 1967. The prime minister presented the president with a personal letter
from President Chung-hee Park, which mentioned, among other things, the necessity of
supplying Korean food to the Korean troops in Vietnam.17 Referring to the letter, the prime
minister re-emphasized the importance of Korean food for the morale of the Korean troops
and that President Park had specifically asked him to mention the problem to President
Johnson. He added a personal note to the conversation by revealing that he himself “had
longed for kimchi even more than he had longed for his wife back in Korea” while staying in
the United States (Gatz 2000, 356).
In his reply to President Park’s letter, written nine days after the meeting, President
Johnson stated the following: “I fully understand the desire of your men in the field to enjoy
familiar rations. That is the way it has always been with soldiers throughout history.
Therefore, I have asked Secretary McNamara to work out with your officials a way to meet
your request that the Korean forces be supplied with ‘kimchi’” (Gatz 2000, 359).
Figure 4.2 Newsreel still of production of canned kimchi for Korean troops in Vietnam. Taehan News (1967), 613 edition.
Reproduced by permission from Han’guk Chŏngch’aek Pangsong KTV.
Figure 4.3 Newsreel still of Korean troops in Vietnam consuming canned kimchi. Taehan News (1968), 656 edition.
Reproduced by permission from Han’guk Chŏngch’aek Pangsong KTV.
The National Archives in College Park, Maryland, reveal the interesting correspondence
that took place afterward between the US Department of Defense and the Republic of Korea
government concerning the extra cost of the kimchi ration to be provided for the South
Korean soldiers fighting in Vietnam. It was estimated that providing each soldier with a
Korean-manufactured combat ration instead of a standard US combat ration once a day
would require a budget of $12 million per year. The second option considered was the
procurement of Korean-made kimchi rations for insertion into the US-manufactured C-
Rations, as a supplement to the US standard ration. The budget required for this operation
would be much smaller, namely $2.5 million, and a decision was made in favor of the latter
option (Barnett 1967).
The issue was rather delicate, as the Department of Defense, which was to pay for the
kimchi rations, was experiencing financial difficulties at the time, while President Johnson
had given his personal endorsement to the Korean request for a kimchi ration. It was,
therefore, crucial to reach an agreement before the White House could interfere, which might
have resulted in an even greater financial burden. The financing of the whole operation
remained a problem for years to come (Nooter 1969; Lathram 1970).
The story by no means ends there. The kimchi rations to be inserted into the standard
American C-Rations were manufactured in Korea by a number of food-processing
enterprises. According to the data provided by the newspaper Maeil Kyŏngje Sinmun, in the
fall of 1967 the following three companies were contracted by the US government for this
purpose: Chinkang Wŏnun for 1,000,000 cans, Hwanam Sanch’u for 1,500,000 cans, and
Taehwa Sangsa for 7,500,000 cans.18 The last of the three companies was clearly the biggest
player in the kimchi canning business, as it delivered three times as many cans as the other
two combined. Moreover, this was not the first time that the name Taehwa Sangsa had
appeared in the Korean print media. Three years earlier, on October 1, 1964, the newspaper
Kyŏnghyang Sinmun had reported on the well-being of the Korean sportsmen competing in
the Tokyo Olympics. They were allegedly in very good form and mood, largely due to the
fact that kimchi was readily available in the Olympic Village cafeteria. The article explained
that the kimchi was provided by a firm called Taehwa Sangsa, which was run by Kim Teiru, a
Korean living in Japan.19
A search in the printed media for Taehwa Sangsa, or Yamato Shōji (as the characters
would have been pronounced in Japanese) did not reveal any new information on the alleged
supplier of kimchi during the Tokyo Olympics. Registers of the Chamber of Commerce
mention neither Yamato Shōji nor Kim Teiru (or alternate pronunciations Taiichi/Teichi).
However, registration with the Chamber of Commerce was not compulsory at the time, and
smaller enterprises hardly ever took the trouble to do so. Thus, the question of whether the
supplier of kimchi for Korean athletes during the Tokyo Olympics and for Korean soldiers in
Vietnam was the same company—or whether these were two independent enterprises that
coincidentally shared the same name—remains unanswered.
Conclusion
Under the impact of culinary globalization, the content of our daily diet has, since at least the
1960s, acquired increasingly diverse cultural roots. Greek yogurt for breakfast, sushi for
lunch, and spaghetti for dinner is by no means an unusual option for a citizen of the
industrialized world. In the midst of this global culinary amalgamation, we tend to classify
different foods by referring to their “nationality,” even when they have become fully
integrated into our lives (see, e.g., Belasco 1989; Heldke 2003; Pilcher 2008; Panayi 2010;
Amenda 2008). We customarily attribute specific dishes and condiments as signifiers of
specific cuisines, without questioning the legitimacy of such attributions.
As British sociologists Scott Lash and John Urry (1994) observed more than two decades
ago, signs rather than material objects are at the center of contemporary political economies.
These include, they argued, the proliferation of informational goods and aesthetic products,
as well as the growing aestheticization of material objects (Lash and Urry 1994, 15). This
implies not only that design comprises an increasing component of the value of goods, but
also that they acquire additional worth through the process of branding, in which marketers
and advertisers attach specific images and associations to them. By declaring kimjang to be
cultural heritage (rather than a chore comparable to the practice of the communal washing of
clothes), the South Korean government assumes the position of a marketer and advertiser of
the nation. UNESCO’s recognition of kimjang as intangible world heritage not only enhances
the Republic of Korea’s overall competitive advantage, but also serves the commercial
interests of the kimchi industry, which can now market its product to the domestic consumer
as their national heritage. Familiarity with foreign food, which has since the 1980s steadily
infiltrated daily reality in South Korea, has turned eating Korean food into a matter of
conscious decision rather than the taken-for-granted act it was in the past.
In Retrotopia (2017), the last book Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman published before
his death, the author suggests that in the globalized world of post-industrial capitalism, the
increasing integration of the world economy and the growing power of international
institutions has restricted the abilities of nation-states to shape policy (Wolff 2001). “Once
stripped of power to shape the future,” Bauman argues, “politics tends to be transferred to the
space of collective memory—a space immensely more amenable to manipulation and
management” (Bauman 2017, 61). Drawing on the work of Svetlana Boym (2001), Bauman
claims that nationalist revivals all over the world are engaged in the creation of the anti-
modern myth of the ideal home that has been lost, often confusing the actual home with the
imaginary one. Engaging directly with David Lowenthal’s acclaimed volume The Past Is a
Foreign Country (1985), Bauman shrewdly observes that “[b]eing a foreign country stopped
being a particular and exclusive quality of the past, and in the result the boundary separating
the past from the present has been progressively washed out and border-posts all but vacated”
(Bauman 2017, 57). Eliminating the industrialization of manufacture from the kimchi
narrative is an articulation of this process.
Notes
1 See also Rockower (2002).
2 For the full list, see UNESCO (n.d. a).
3 For the text of the “Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage,” see UNESCO (n.d. b).
4 For the text of the “Procedure of inscription of elements on the Lists and of selection of Good Safeguarding Practices,”
see UNESCO (n.d. g).
5 The statement made on December 5, 2013 by Bak Sang-mee, the Korean member of Cultural Heritage Committee, was
aired on Arirang News (2013) and repeated by other news outlets.
6 For the full inventory of the list, see UNESCO (n.d. a).
7 The campaign closed in 2017, and the Korean Food Foundation was renamed the Korean Food Promotion Institute
(Hansik Chinhŭngwŏn). For the current activities of the institute, see KFPI (2017).
8 See “Consent of Communities” and “ICH Inventory” documents are available for download from UNESCO’s website
(UNESCO n.d. h).
9 Taehan News , no. 516, April 21, 1955.
10 Tonga Ilbo , March 5, 1955.
11 Kyŏnghyang Sinmun , July 8, 1965 and July 10, 1965.
12 Kyŏnghyang Sinmun , July 24, 1965.
13 Chosŏn Ilbo , July 9, 1965.
14 Kyŏnghyang Sinmun , October 14, 1965; Chosŏn Ilbo , May 12, 1966.
15 Tonga Ilbo , December 29, 1965.
16 Kyŏnghyang Sinmun , September 8, 1965; Tonga Ilbo , September 13, 1966; Maeil Kyŏngje ,
September 28, 1966.
17 A copy of Park’s March 8 letter, attached to a March 14 letter from Fleck to Rear Admiral Lemos is in the National
Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 7 KOR S.
18 Maeil Kyŏngje November 1, 1967.
19 Kyŏnghyang Sinmun , October 1, 1964.
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4

From Military Rations to UNESCO Heritage: A

holistic approach to raising international awareness of a country’s edible national brand

The UNESCO inscription

Kimchi is the product:

of traditional Japanese products (Cwiertka 2006, 153). A combination of factors stimulated

The kimchi file

Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

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